Author Guidelines

Upon submission of an article, the authors retain ownership of the copyright of their articles. Any user can download, print out, extract, reuse, archive, and distribute the article so long as appropriate credit is given to the authors and source of the work. The authors' article will be available as widely as possible and can be included in any scholarly archive. A fee of RM100 should be paid to the publisher's account number.

On submission

When submitting an article, all authors are asked to indicate that they do not have a related or duplicate manuscript under consideration (or accepted) for publication elsewhere. You can use this formatting template for submission to the journal. Once the paper is accepted, the author MUST adjust the formatting for publication.

On Confidentiality & Privacy Statement

Editors and reviewers are required to treat all submitted manuscripts in strict confidence. The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal. They will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. 

On Corrections and Additions 

Responsibility for the content's accuracy lies with the paper's author(s). 

On Ethical

Authors are expected to be aware of and comply with best practices in publication ethics, specifically about authorship (for example, avoidance of ghost or guest authorship), dual submission, plagiarism, manipulation of figures, competing interests and compliance with policies on research ethics. Reviewers and Editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence.

Publication Ethics

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas. It is important to avoid:

• Data fabrication and falsification:

Data fabrication means the researcher did not do the study but faked the data. Data falsification means the researcher did the experiment but then changed some of the data.

• Plagiarism:

Taking the ideas and work of other scientists without giving them credit is unfair and dishonest. Copying even one sentence from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of your own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered plagiarism—use your own words instead.

• Multiple submissions:

It is unethical to submit the same manuscript to multiple journals simultaneously. Doing this wastes the time of editors and peer reviewers. It can damage the reputation of the authors and the journals if published in more than one journal, as the later publication will have to be retracted.

• Redundant publications (or ‘salami’ publications):

This means publishing many very similar manuscripts based on the same experiment. Combining your results into one very robust paper is more likely to be of interest to a selective journal. Editors will likely reject a weak paper that they suspect results from salami slicing.

• Improper author contribution or attribution:

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. Don’t forget to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians. Do not “gift” authorship to those who did not contribute to the paper. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has detailed guidelines on authorship that are useful for scientists in all fields: International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

Many journals have tools and processes to identify researchers engaging in unethical behaviour. If caught, your manuscript may be rejected without review, and your institution will be informed.